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AN UNDISCOVERED 
ISLAND 



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Copyright, 1891 and 1893, by 
Dodd, Mead & Company 



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AN UNDISCOVERED 
ISLAND 



AN UNDISCOVERED 
ISLAND 

I 

Come unto these yellow sands, 

And then take hands ; 

Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd 

The wild waves whist, 

Foot it featly here and there ; 

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. 

>NE winter evening, 
some time after the 
memorable year of 
our first visit to the 
Forest of Arden, Rosalind and 
I were planning a return to that 
enchanting place, and in the 
glow of the fire on the hearth 
were picturing to ourselves the 
delights that would be ours 
again, when the clang of the 
knocker suddenly recalled us 
from our dreams. Hospitably 




AN UNDISCOVERED 

inclined, as I trust and believe 
we are, at that moment an in- 
terruption seemed like an in- 
trusion. But our momentary 
annoyance was speedily dis- 
pelled when the library door 
opened, and, with the freedom 
which belongs to old friendship, 
the Poet entered unannounced. 
No one could have been more 
welcome on that wintry night 
than this genial and human soul, 
bound to us by many ties of 
familiar association as well as 
by frequent neighbourliness in 
the woods of Arden. It had 
happened again and again that 
we had found ourselves together 
in the recesses of the Forest, 
and enchanting beyond all 
speech had been those days and 
nights of mingled talk and 
dreams. 

8 



SLAND 



The Poet is one of the friends 
whose coming is peculiarly wel- 
come because it always harmon- 
ises with the mood of the mo- 
ment, and no speech is needed 
to bring us into agreement. 
Rosalind took the visitor into 
our plan at once, and urged him 
to go with us on this mysterious 
journey ; whereupon he told us 
that, by one of those delightful 
coincidences which are always 
happening to people of kindred 
tastes and aims, this very er- 
rand had brought him to our 
door. The time had come, he 
said, when he could no longer 
resist the longing for Arden ! 
We all smiled at that sudden 
outburst ; how well we knew 
what it meant ! After months 
of going our ways dutifully in 
the dust and heat of the world. 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

the longing for Arden would on 
the instant become irresistible. 
Come what might, the hunger 
for perfect comprehension and 
fellowship, the thirst for the 
beauty and repose of the deep 
woods, must be satisfied, and 
forsaking whatever was in hand 
we fled incontinently across the 
invisible boundaries into that 
other and diviner country. No 
sooner had the Poet made his 
confession than we hastened to 
make ours, and, without further 
consideration, we resolved the 
very next day to shake the dust 
from our feet and escape into 
Arden. This question settled, 
a great gaiety seized us, and we 
began to plan new journeys for 
the years to come ; journeys 
which had this peculiar charm — 
that they belonged to a few 



SLAND 



kindred spirits ; the world 
knows nothing of them, and 
when some obscure reference 
brings them to mind, smiles its 
sceptical smile, and goes on 
with its money-getting. Rosa- 
lind drew from its hiding-place 
the chart of this world of the 
imagination which we were 
given to studying on long winter 
evenings, and of which only a 
few copies exist. These charts 
are among the few things not to 
be had for money ; if they fall 
into alien hands they are incom- 
prehensible. It is true of them, 
as of the books which describe 
the Forest of Arden, that they 
have a kind of second meaning, 
only to be discerned by those 
whose eyes detect the deeper 
things of life. It is another 
peculiarity of these charts that 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

while science has indirectly 
done not a little for their com- 
pleteness, the work of prepar- 
ing them has fallen entirely into 
the hands of the poets ; not, of 
course, the writers of verse 
alone, but those who have had 
the vision of the great world as 
it lies in the imagination, and 
who have heard that deep and 
incommunicable music which 
sings at the heart of it. 

Rosalind spread this chart on 
the table, and we drew our 
chairs around it, noting now 
one and now another of the 
famous places of which all men 
have heard, but which to most 
men are mere figments of 
dreams. Here, for instance, in 
a certain latitude plainly marked 
on the margin, is that calm 
sweet land of the Phseacians 



12 



ISLAND 



where reigns Alcinous the great- 
souled king, and the white- 
armed Nausicaa sings after her 
bath on the river's brink: 

Without the palace court and near the 
gate 

A spacious garden of four acres lay, 

A hedge inclosed it round, and lofty- 
trees 

Flourished in generous growth within 
— the pear 

And the pomegranate, and the apple 
tree 

With its fair fruitage, and the luscious 

And olive always green. The fruit 
they bear 

Falls not, nor ever fails in winter time 

Nor summer, but is yielded all the 
year. 

The ever-blowing west wind causes 
some 

To swell and some to ripen ; pear suc- 
ceeds 

To pear ; to apple, apple, grape to 
grape, 

Fig ripens after fig. 

Here, as Rosalind moves her 
r 3 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

finger, lies the vally of Avalon, 
whither Arthur went to heal his 
overmastering sorrow, and 
where the air is always sweet 
with the smell of apple blos- 
soms. In this deep wood lives 
Merlin, still weaving, as of old, 
the magic spells. There is the 
castle of the Grail, and as our 
eyes fall on it, suddenly there 
comes a hush, and we seem to 
hear the sublime antiphony, 
choir answering choir in heav- 
enly melody, as Parsifal raises 
the cup, and the light from 
above smites it into sudden 
glory. We are travelling east- 
ward, touching here and there 
those names which belong only 
to the greatest poetry, when 
Rosalind's finger — the index 
of our wanderings — suddenly 
pauses and rests on an island, 

14 



ISLAND 



not large, as it lies amid that 
silent sea, but wonderful above 
all islands to which thought has 
ever wandered or where im- 
agination has ever made its 
home. Under the light of the 
lamp, with Rosalind's face bend- 
ing over it, no island ever slept 
in a deeper calm than this little 
circle of land about which the 
greatest of the poets once 
evoked the most marvellous of 
tempests. Rosalind's finger 
does not move from that mag- 
ical point, and, peering on the 
chart, our eyes suddenly meet, 
and a single thought is in them 
all. Why not postpone Arden 
for the moment and explore the 
isle of Miranda's morning 
beauty and Prospero's magical 
wisdom ? 

11 Why not ? " says Rosalind, 



*5 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

speaking aloud, and instead of 
answering her question the Poet 
and I are wondering why we 
have never gone before. 
Straightway we fall to studying 
the map more closely ; we note 
the latitude and longitude ; it 
is but a little way from the 
mainland where stretches the 
green expanse of the Forest of 
Arden. We might have gone 
long ago if we had been a little 
more adventurous ; at least we 
think we might at the first blush ; 
but when we talk it over, as we 
proceed to do when Rosalind 
has rolled up the chart and put 
it in its place, we are not quite 
so sure about it. It is one of 
the singular things about this 
kind of journeying that one 
learns how to travel and where 
to go only by personal observa- 

16 



SLA.ND 



tion. Before we went to 
Arden, for instance, we had no 
clear knowledge of any of these 
countries ; we had often heard 
of them ; their names were 
often on our lips ; but they 
were not real to us. That 
happy day when Arden ceased 
to be a dream to us was the be- 
ginning of a rapid growth of 
knowledge concerning these in- 
visible countries ; one by one 
they seemed to rise within the 
circle of our expanding expe- 
rience until we became aware 
that we were masters of a new 
kind of geography. That de- 
lightful discovery was not many 
years behind us, but this new 
knowledge had already become 
so much a part of our lives that 
we often confused it with the 
knowledge of commoner things. 



17 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

That night, before we parted, 
our plans were completed ; on 
the morrow, when night came, 
the fire on the hearth would be 
unlighted, for we should be on 
Prospero's island. 



18 



ISLAND 



II 



O rejoice 
Beyond a common joy ; and set it down 
With gold on lasting pillars : in one 

voyage 
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis ; 
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a 

wife 
Where he himself was lost ; Prospero, 

his dukedom, 
In a poor isle ; and all of us, ourselves, 
Where no man was his own. 

11 Honest Gonzalo never 
spoke truer word/' said the Poet, 
answering Rosalind, who had 
been quoting the old counsel- 
lor's summing up of the common 
good fortune on the island when 
Prospero dispelled his enchant- 
ments and the shipwrecked com- 
pany found themselves saved as 
by miracle. It was our first 
evening on the island ; one of 
those memorable nights when all 

19 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

things seem born anew into some 
larger heritage of beauty. The 
moon hung low over the quiet 
sea, sleeping now under the spell 
of the summer night, as if no 
storm had ever vexed it. So 
silent, so hushed was it that but 
for the soft ripple on the sand 
we should have thought it calmed 
in eternal repose. Far off along 
the horizon the stars hung mo- 
tionless as the sea ; overhead 
they shone out of the measure- 
less depths of space with a soft 
and solemn splendour. Not a 
branch moved on the great trees 
behind us, folded now in the 
universal mystery of the night. 
The little stretch of beech, over 
whose yellow sands the song of 
the invisible Ariel once floated, 
lay in the soft light fit for the 
feet of fairies, or the gentle ad- 



SLAND 



vance and retreat of the sea. 
The very air, suffused through 
all that vast immensity with a 
mysterious light, seemed like a 
dream of peace. 

In such a place, at such an 
hour, one shrinks from speech 
as from the word that breaks 
the spell. When one is so 
much a part of the sublime order 
of things that the universal 
movement of force that streams 
through all things embraces and 
thrills him with the conscious- 
ness of common fellowship, how 
vain is all human utterance I 
The greatest of poems, the sub- 
lime harmony in which all things 
are folded, has never been 
spoken, and never will be. No 
lyre in any human hand will ever 
make those divine chords audi- 
ble. The poets hear them, know 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

them, live by them ; but no 
verse contains them. So much 
a part of that wondrous night 
were we that any speech would 
have seemed like a severance of 
things that were one ; all the 
deep meaning of the hour was 
clear to us because we were in- 
cluded in it. How long we sat 
in that silence I do not know ; 
we had forgotten the world out 
of which we had escaped, and 
the route by which we came ; 
we knew only that an infinite 
sea of beauty and wonder rip- 
pled on the beach at our feet, 
and that over us the heavens 
were as a delicate veil, beyond 
which diviner loveliness seemed 
waiting on the verge of birth. 

It was Rosalind who spoke at 
last, and spoke in words which 
flashed the human truth of the 

22 



ISLAND 



hour into our thoughts. On this 
island we had found ourselves ; 
so often lost, at times so long 
forgotten, in the busy world that 
lay afar off. And then we fell 
a-talking of the island and of all 
the kindred places where men 
have found homes for their 
souls ; sweet and fragrant re- 
treats whence the noise of strife 
and toil died into a faint mur- 
mur, or was lost in some vast 
silence. At Milan, Prospero 
found the cares of state so irk- 
some, the joy of " secret studies " 
so alluring, that, despairing of 
harmonising things so alien, he 
took refuge with his books, and 
found his "library was duke- 
dom large enough." But the 
problem was not solved by this 
surrender ; out of the library, as 
out of the dukedom, he was set 



23 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

adrift, homeless and friendless, 
until he set foot on the island 
where he was to rule with no 
divided sway. Here was his 
true home ; here the spirits of 
the air and the powers of the 
earth were his ministers ; here 
his word seemed part of the ele- 
mental order ; he spoke and it 
was done, for the winds and the 
sea obeyed him. And when, in 
the working out of destiny which 
he himself directed, he returns 
to the dukedom from which he 
had been thrust out, he is no 
longer the Prospero of ineffect- 
ive days. Henceforth he will 
rule Milan as he rules the quiet 
dukedom of his books ; he has 
become a master of life and 
time, and his sovereignty will 
never again be disputed. 

Prospero did not find the is- 

24 



ISLAND 



land ; he created it. It was the 
necessity of his life that he 
should fashion this bit of terri- 
tory out of the great sea, that 
here his soul might learn its 
strength and win its freedom ; 
that here, far from dukedom 
and courtiers, he might discover 
that a great soul creates its own 
world and lives its own life. 
Milan may cast him out, as did 
Florence another of his kind, 
but this human rejection will 
but bring him into that empire 
which no enmity may touch, in 
the calm of whose divinely 
ordered government treasons 
are unknown. No man finds 
himself until he has created a 
world for his own soul ; a world 
apart from care and weakness 
and the confusions of strife, in 
which the faiths that inspire him 



25 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

and the ideals that lead him are 
the great and lasting verities. 
To this world-building all the 
great poetic minds are driven ; 
within this invisible empire alone 
can they reconcile the life that 
surrounds them with the life 
that floats like a dream before 
them. No great mind is ever 
at rest until in some way the 
Real and the Ideal are found to 
be one. Literature is full of 
these beautiful homes of the 
soul, reared without the sound 
of chisel or hammer by the 
magic of the Imagination — di- 
vinest of the faculties, since it 
is the only one which creates. 
The other faculties observe, re- 
cord, compare, combine ; the 
imagination alone uses the brush, 
the chisel, or the pen ! 

If one were to record these 

~~ 26 



ISLAND 



kingdoms of the mind, how long 
and luminous would be the 
catalogue I The golden age and 
the fabled Atlantis of the elder 
poets ; the " Republic " of the 
broad-browed Athenian ; the 
secret gardens, impregnable cas- 
tles, sweet and inaccessible re- 
treats of the mediaeval fancy ; 
the Paradise of Dante ; the en- 
chanting world through which 
the Fairy Queen moves ; the 
" Utopia " of the noble More ; 
the Forest of Arden — what vi- 
sions of peace, what glimpses of 
beauty, accompany every name I 
To all these worlds of supernal 
loveliness there is a single key ; 
fortunate among men are they 
who hold it I 



27 



AN UNDISCOVERED 



III 

Be not afraid ; the isle is full of noises, 

Sounds and sweet airs that give delight 
and hurt not. 

Sometimes a thousand twanging in- 
struments 

Will hum about mine ears ; and some- 
times voices, 

That, if I then had waked after long 
sleep, 

Will make me sleep again ; and then, 
in dreaming, 

The clouds methought would open, and 
show riches 

Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I 
waked, 

I cried to dream again. 

When the sun rose the next 
morning, we rose with it, eager 
to explore our little world about 
which the sea never ceased to 
sing its mighty hymn of solitude 
and mystery. There was some- 
thing impressive in the con- 
sciousness of our isolation : be- 

28~ 



SLAND 



tween us and any noise of 
human occupation the waters 
were stretched as a barrier 
against which all sound died 
into silence. There was some- 
thing enchanting in the beauty 
and strangeness of this tiny con- 
tinent, unreported by any geog- 
raphy, unmarked on any chart 
save that which a few possess 
as a kind of sacred heritage, 
untravelled as yet by our eager 
feet. There was something 
thrilling in the associations that 
touched the island with such a 
light as never fell from sun or 
star. With beating hearts we 
set out on that wondrous ex- 
ploration. Who does not re- 
member the thrill of the first 
discovery of a new world ; that 
joy of the soul in possession of 
a great new truth which passes 

29 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

all speech > There are hours in 
this troubled life when the mists 
are lifted and float away like 
faint clouds against the blue, 
and the great world lies like a 
splendid vision before us, and 
"the immeasurable heavens 
break open to the highest," and 
in a sudden rift of human limita- 
tion the whole sublime order 
opens before us, sings to us out 
of the fathomless depths of its 
harmony, thrills us with a sud- 
den sense of God and of the 
undiscovered range and splen- 
dour of our lives ; and when they 
have passed, these hours remain 
with us in the afterglow of 
clearer vision and deeper faith. 
Such hours are the peculiar joy 
of those who hold the key of 
the imagination in their grasp 
and are able to unlock the gate 

3° 



ISLAND 



of dreams, or make themselves 
the companion of the great ex- 
plorers in the realms of truth 
and beauty. These are the se- 
cret joys which people solitude 
and make the quiet days one 
long draught of inspiration. 

In such a mood our quest be- 
gan and ended. We skirted the 
beach ; we plunged deep into 
recesses of the woods ; we 
stretched ourselves on the broad 
expanse of greensward in the 
shade of the great boughs ; we 
followed the rivulet to the 
hushed and shadowy solitude 
where it issued from the moss- 
grown rock ; wherever we bent 
our steps the song of the sea 
followed us, and the day was 
calm and cool as with its breadth 
and freshness. The island had 
its own beauty ; the beauty of 



3 1 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

virgin forests and untrodden 
paths, of a certain fragrant 
sweetness gathered in years of 
untroubled solitude, of a certain 
pastoral repose such as comes 
to Nature when man is remote ; 
but that which gave us the thrill 
of something strangely sweet 
and satisfying, something apart 
from the world we had left, was 
not anything we saw with eye. 
All that was visible was beauti- 
ful, but it was a loveliness not 
unfamiliar ; it was the invisible 
continually breaking in upon 
our consciousness that laid us 
under a spell. We were con- 
scious of something lovelier 
than we saw ; a world not to 
be discerned by sight, but real 
and unspeakably beautiful to 
the soul. Even to Caliban 
the isle was "full of noises"; 

3 2 



SLAND 



** sounds and sweet airs that 
give delight" did not escape 
his brutish sense. Sometimes 
"a thousand twangling instru- 
ments " hummed about his ears ; 
sometimes voices whose soft 
music was akin to sleep floated 
about him ; and sometimes the 
clouds ''would open and show 
riches ready to drop upon " 
him. There was a sweet en- 
chantment in the air to which 
the dullest could not be indiffer- 
ent. It hovered over us like 
some finer beauty, just beyond 
the vision of sense, and yet as 
real, almost as tangible, as the 
things we touched and saw. 

Alone as we were upon the 
little island, we felt the diviner 
world of which that tiny bit 
of earth was part ; we knew 
the higher beauty of which all 



33 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

that visible loveliness was but a 
sign and symbol. The song of 
the sea, breathed from we knew 
not what depths of space, was 
not more real than this melody, 
haunting the island and dropping 
from the air like blossoms from 
a ripening tree. Turn where 
we would, this music went with 
us ; it mingled with the murmur 
of the trees ; it blended with the 
limpid note of the rivulet ; it 
melted with the breeze that 
swept across the grassy places. 
All day, and for many another 
day, we were conscious of a 
larger world of harmony and 
beauty folding in our little world 
of tree and soil; we lived in 
it as freely and made it ours 
as fully as the bit of earth 
beneath our feet. Through all 
our talk this thread of melody 

34 



SLAND 



was run, and our very thoughts 
were set to this unfailing music. 
In those days the Poet wrote 
no verses ; what need of verse 
when poetry itself, that deep 
and breathing beauty of the 
soul of things, filled every hour 
and overflowed all the channels 
of thought and sense 1 

But if we were dumb in the 
hearing of a music beyond our 
mastery, we were not blind to 
the parable conveyed in every 
sound and sight ; in those deli- 
cious days and nights a great 
truth cleared itself forever in 
our minds. We know hence- 
forth how all dream-worlds, all 
beautiful hopes and visions and 
ideals, are fashioned. They are 
not of human making ; they but 
make visible things which al- 
ready exist unseen ; they but 

35 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

make audible sounds which are 
already vocal unheard. He 
who dreams, sleeps, and an- 
other fills the chamber of his 
brain with moving figures ; he 
who aspires, hopes and believes, 
unlocks the door, and another 
world, already furnished with 
beauty, lies before him. Our 
ideals are God's realities. We 
build the new worlds of our 
knowledge out of the dust of 
worlds already swinging in 
space ; the stately homes of 
our imagination rise on foun- 
dations of the common earth. 
Prospero's island was made of 
common soil ; flowers, trees, 
and grass grow on it as they 
grow about the homes of work 
and care. The same sea washes 
its shores which beats upon the 
coasts of ancient continents ; 

"36"" 



SLAND 



over it bends that same sky 
which enfolds all the genera- 
tions of men. Prospero's island 
is no mirage, hovering unreal 
and evanescent on the far hori- 
zon ; no impalpable phantom of 
reality floating like some strayed 
flower on the lovely sea of 
dreams. It is as solid as the 
earth, as real as the soul that 
fashioned it. No miracle was 
wrought, no law violated, in its 
making. Beautiful, true, and 
enduring, it lies upon the 
waters ; a haven for men in 
the storms that beat upon the 
high seas of this troubled life. 
That which is strange and won- 
derful about it is the music 
which forever hovers about it ; 
that which makes it enchanted 
ground is the sound of voices 
sweet as the quietness of sleep, 



37 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

the vision of clouds ready to 
drop unmeasured riches 1 An 
island solid as the great world 
out of which it was fashioned, 
but sweet with heavenly voices 
and sublime with heavenlyvisions 
— such is the island of Pros- 
pero's enchantments. 

And such are all true ideals, 
dreams, and aspirations. They 
have their roots in the same 
earth whence the commonest 
weed grows ; but the light and 
life of the heavens are theirs 
also. In them the visible and 
the invisible are harmonised ; 
in them the real finds its com- 
pletion in the ideal. The com- 
mon earth is common only to 
those who are deaf to the voices 
and blind to the visions which 
wait on it and make its flight a 
music and its path a light. Out 

38 



ISLAND 



of these common things the great 
artists build the homes of our 
souls. Rock-founded are they, 
and broad-based on our mother 
earth ; but they have windows 
skyward, and there, above the 
tumult of the little earth, the 
great worlds sing. 



39 



AN UNDISCOVERED 



IV 

You do yet taste 
Some subtilities o' the isle, that will not 

let you 
Believe things certain. 

One brilliant morning, the sky 
cloudless and the sea singing 
under a freshening wind, we sat 
under a great tree, with a bit of 
soft sward before us, and talked 
of Prospero. In that place the 
master presence was always 
with us ; there was never an 
hour in which we did not feel 
the spell of his creative spirit. 
We were always secretly hoping 
that we should come upon him 
in some secluded place, his staff 
unbroken, and his book un- 
drowned. But what need had 
we of sight while the island en- 

40 



ISLAND 



compassed us and the multitu- 
dinous music filled the air? 

On that fair morning the mag- 
ical beauty of the world pos- 
sessed us, and our talk, blend- 
ing unconsciously with the mu- 
sic of the invisible choir, was 
broken by long pauses. The 
Poet was saying that the world 
thought of Prospero as a ma- 
gician, a wonder-worker, whose 
thought borrowed the fleetness 
of Ariel, whose staff unleashed 
the tempest and sent it back to 
its hiding-place when its work 
was done, and in whose book 
were written all manner of 
charms and incantations. This 
was the Prospero whom Cali- 
ban knew, and this is the Pros- 
pero whom the world remem- 
bers. " For myself," said he, 
" I often try to forget the mira- 



4i 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

cles, so stained and defiled seem 
the great artists by this homage 
which is only another form of 
materialism. The search for 
signs and wonders is always 
vulgar ; it defiles every great 
spirit who compromises with it, 
because it puts the miracle in 
place of the truth. That which 
gives a wonder its only dignity 
and significance is the spiritual 
power which it evidences and 
the spiritual knowledge which it 
conveys. To the greatest of 
teachers this hunger for miracles 
was a bitter experience ; he who 
came with the mystery of the 
heavenly love in his soul must 
have felt defiled by the homage 
rendered as to a necromancer, a 
doer of strange things. The 
curiosity which draws men to 
the masters of the arts has no 

42 



ISLAND 



real honour in it ; the only rec- 
ognition which is real and last- 
ing is that which springs from 
the perception of truth and 
beauty disclosed anew in some 
noble form. Prospero was a 
magician, but he was much more 
and much greater than a won- 
der-worker ; not Caliban, but 
Ferdinand and Miranda and 
Gonzalo, are the true judges of 
his power. Prospero was the 
master spirit of the world which 
moved about him. He alone 
knew its secret and used its 
forces ; on him alone rested the 
government of this marvellous 
realm. His command had stirred 
the seas and sent the winds 
abroad which brought Milan and 
Naples within his hand ; at his 
bidding the isle was full of 
sounds ; Ariel served him with 

43 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

tireless devotion ; he read the 
sweet thought that flashed from 
Miranda to Ferdinand ; he un- 
earthed the base conspiracy of 
Caliban, Trinculo, and Steph- 
ano : he read the treacherous 
hearts of Antonio and Sebastian ; 
in his hand all these threads 
were gathered, and upon all 
these lives his will was imposed. 
In that majestic drama of hu- 
man character and action, pow- 
ers of air and earth, the high- 
est and the lowest alike serv- 
ing, it is a lofty soul and a 
noble mind possessed by a 
great purpose, which control 
and triumph. The magical arts 
are simply the means by which 
a great end is served ; when 
the work is accomplished, the 
staff will be broken and the 
book sunk beneath the sea, 

44 



ISLAND 



lower than any sounding of 
plummet." 

" Yes," said Rosalind, im- 
pulsively, carrying the thought 
another step forward, " Pros- 
pero deals with natural, sub- 
stantial things for great, real 
ends, not with magical powers 
for fantastic purposes. When 
it falls in his way, he evokes 
forces so unusual that they seem 
supernatural to those who do 
not understand his power, but 
the end which lies before him is 
always real, enduring, and no- 
ble ; something which belongs 
to the eternal order of things." 

" For that matter," I inter- 
rupted, " it grows more and 
more difficult to distinguish be- 
tween the forces and the 
achievements that we have 
thought real and possible, and 



45 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

those which have seemed only 
dreams and visions. Men are 
doing things every day by me- 
chanical agencies which the most 
famous of the old magicians 
failed to accomplish. The vi- 
sions of great minds are realities 
discovered a little in advance of 
their universal recognition. " 

" As I was saying," continued 
the Poet, " most men hold Pros- 
pero to be a mere wonder- 
worker, a magician who puts 
his arts on and off with his 
robe ; they do not know that 
he stands for the greatest force 
in the world. For the Im- 
agination is not only the inspir- 
ing leader of men in their strange 
journey through life, but their 
nearest, most constant, and- 
most practical helper and sus- 
tained That our souls would 

46 



ISLAND 



have starved without the Im- 
agination we are all, I think, 
agreed ; without Imagination 
we should have seen and re- 
membered nothing on our long 
journey but the path at our feet. 
The heavens above us, the great, 
mysterious world about us, 
would have meant no more to 
us than to the birds and the 
beasts that have perished with- 
out thought or memory of the 
beauty which has encompassed 
them. All this the Imagination 
has interpreted for us. It has 
fashioned life for us, and the 
dullest mind that plods and 
counts and dies is ministered to 
and enriched by it. It does 
magical things. It puts on its 
robe and opens its book, and 
straightway the heavens rain 
melody and drop riches upon 



47 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

us. But this is its play. In 
these displays of its art it hints 
at the resources at its command, 
at the marvels it will yet bring 
to pass. Meanwhile it has 
made the earth hospitable for us 
and taught men how to live 
above the brutes/' 

The Poet stopped abruptly, 
as if he had been caught in the 
act of preaching, and Rosalind 
gave the sermon a delightful 
ending. 

11 I wonder," she said, " if 
love would be possible without 
the Imagination > For the 
heart of love is the perception 
of a deep and genuine fellow- 
ship of the soul, and the end of 
love is the happiness which 
comes through ministry. Could 
we understand a human soul or 
serve it if the Imagination did not 

~48 



ISLAND 



aid us with its wonderful light ? 
Is it not the Imagination which 
enables me to put myself in an- 
other's place, and so to sympa- 
thise with another's sorrow and 
share another's joy } Could a 
man feel the sufferings of a class 
or a race or the world if the 
Imagination did not open these 
things to him ? And if he did 
not understand, could he 
serve > " 

No one answered these ques- 
tions, for they made us aware 
on the instant how dependent 
are all the deep and beautiful 
relations of life on this wonder- 
ful faculty. But for this " mas- 
ter light of all our seeing," how 
small a circle of light would lie 
about our feet, how vast a dark- 
ness would engulf the world ! 



49 



AN UNDISCOVERED 



O wonder ! 
How many goodly creatures are there 

here ! 
How beauteous mankind is ! O brave 

new world, 
That has such people in 't ! 

We had never thought of the 
island in the old days save as 
lashed by tempests ; but now 
the suns rose and set, dawn 
wore its shining veil and night 
its crest of stars and not a cloud 
darkened the sky ; we seemed 
to be in the heart of a vast and 
changeless calm. There was no 
monotony in the unbroken suc- 
cession of the days, but the 
changes were wrought by light, 
not by darkness. The singing 
of the sea, never rising into 
those shrill upper notes which 
bode disaster, nor sinking into 

5o 



:SLAND 



the deep lower tones through 
which the awful thunder of the 
elements breaks, came to us 
as out of the depths of an infinite 
repose. The youth of an un- 
troubled world was in it. The 
joy of effortless activities 
breathed through it. We felt 
that we were once more in the 
morning of the world's day, and 
hope gave the keynote to all our 
thought. Life is divided be- 
tween hope and memory ; when 
memory holds the chief place, 
the shadows are lengthening 
and the day declining. 

It was one of the pleasures 
of the island that we were alone 
upon it. There was no trace 
of any other human occupation, 
although we never forgot those 
who had been before us in these 
enchanting scenes. One morn- 

5 1 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

ing, when we had been talking 
about the delight of seclusion, 
Rosalind said that, although the 
silence and repose were really 
medicinal, people had never 
seemed so attractive to her as 
now when she remembered 
them under the spell of the 
island. It seemed to her, as 
she recalled them now, that 
the dull people had an interest 
of their own, the vulgar peo- 
ple were not without dignity, 
nor the bad people without 
noble qualities. The Poet, 
who had evidently been giving 
himself the luxury of dreaming, 
declared that we cannot know 
people save through the Imag- 
ination, and that lack of Imag- 
ination is at the bottom of all 
pessimism in philosophy, re- 
ligion, and personal experience. 

52 



ISLAND 



A fact taken by itself and de- 
tached from the whole of which 
it is part is always hard, bare, 
repellent ; it must be seen in its 
relations if one would perceive 
its finer and inner beauty ; and 
it is the Imagination alone which 
sees things as a whole. The 
theologians who have stuck to 
what they call logic have spread 
a veil of sadness over the world 
which the poets must dissipate. 
" I do not mean," he added, 
" that there are not sombre 
and terrible aspects of life, but 
that these things have been sep- 
arated from the whole, and dis- 
cerned only in their bare and 
crushing isolated force. The 
real significance of things lies in 
their interpretation, and the 
Imagination is the only inter- 
preter." 

53 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

I had often had the same 
thought, and found infinite con- 
solation in it ; indeed, I rested 
in it so securely that I would 
trust myself with far more con- 
fidence to the poets than to 
the logicians. The guess of a 
great poetic mind has as solid 
ground under it as the specula- 
tion of a scientist ; it differs 
from the scientific theory only 
in that it is an induction from a 
greater number of significant 
facts. The Imagination follows 
the arc until it "comes full 
circle " ; observation halts and 
waits for further sight. 

Rosalind thought it very 
beautiful that Miranda's first 
glance at men should have dis- 
covered them so fair and noble ; 
there was evil enough in some 
of them, but standing beside 

54 



SLAND 



Prospero Miranda saw only the 
11 brave new world." I remem- 
bered at that moment that even 
Caliban discloses to the Imag- 
ination the germ of a human 
development ; has not another 
poet written his later story and 
recorded the birth of his soul ? 
It was characteristic of Rosa- 
lind that she should see the 
people in the marvellous drama 
through Miranda's eyes, and 
that straightway the whole 
world of men and women 
should reveal itself to her in a 
new light. "To see the good 
in people," she said, " is not so 
much a matter of charity as of 
justice. Our judgments of oth- 
ers fail oftenest through lack of 
Imagination. We fail to see 
all the facts ; we see one or 
two very clearly, and at once 



55 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

form an opinion. To see the 
whole range of a human charac- 
ter involves an intellectual and 
spiritual quality which few of 
us possess. There is so little 
justice among us because we 
possess so little intelligence. I 
ought not to pronounce judg- 
ment on a fellow-creature until 
I know all that enters into his 
life ; until I can measure all the 
forces of temptation and resist- 
ance ; until I can give full 
weight to all the facts in the 
case. In other words, I am 
never in a position to judge 
another." 

The Poet evidently assented 
to this statement, and I could 
not gainsay it ; is there not the 
very highest authority for it? 
The time will come when there 
will be a universal surrender of 

56 



SLAND 



that authority which we have 
been usurping all these cen- 
turies. We shall not cease to 
recognize the weakness and folly 
of men, but we shall cease to 
decide the exact measure of per- 
sonal responsibility. That is a 
function for which we were 
never qualified ; it is a task 
which belongs to infinite wis- 
dom. The Imagination helps 
us to understand others because 
it reveals the vast compass of 
the influences that converge on 
every human soul like the count- 
less rivulets that give the river 
its volume and impetus. To 
look at men and women through 
the vision of the Imagination is 
to see a very different race than 
that which meets our common 
sight. To this larger vision, 
within which the past supple- 



57 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

ments the present, the great 
army of men and women moves 
to a solemn and appealing music. 
The pathos of life touches them 
with an indescribable dignity ; 
the work of life gives them an 
unspeakable nobility. Under 
the meanest exterior there are 
one knows not what tragedies 
of denied hopes and unappeased 
longings ; behind the mask of 
evil there shines one knows not 
what struggling virtue overborne 
by impulses that flow from the 
past like irresistible torrents. 
Hidden under all manner of dis- 
guises — weakness, poverty, ig- 
norance, vulgarity — there waits 
a world of ideals never realized 
but never lost ; the fire of as- 
piration burns in a thousand 
thousand souls that are maimed 
and broken, bruised and baffled, 

58 — 



SLAND 



but which still survive. Is not 
this the unquenchable spark that 
some day, in freer air, shall break. 
into white flame ? It is the Im- 
agination only that discerns in a 
thousand contradictions, a thou- 
sand obscurities, the large de- 
sign to be revealed when the 
ring of the hammer has ceased, 
the dust of toil been laid, the 
scaffolding removed, and the fin- 
ished structure suddenly dis- 
closes the miracle wrought 
among those who were blind. 



59 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

VI 

I might call him 
A thing divine ; for nothing natural 
I ever saw so noble. 

Rosalind was deeply inter- 
ested in Prospero ; and when 
the Poet and I had talked long 
and eagerly about him, she often 
threw into the current some 
comment or suggestion that gave 
us quite another and clearer view 
of his genius and work. But at 
heart Rosalind's chief interest 
was in Miranda and Ferdinand. 
The presence of Prospero had 
given the island a solemn and 
far-reaching significance in the 
geography of the world ; Mi- 
randa and Ferdinand had left an 
unfailing and beguiling charm 
about the place. If we could 
have known the point where 

6o~ 



SLAND 



these two fresh and unspoiled 
natures met, I am confident we 
should have stayed there by 
common but unspoken consent. 
After all our discoveries in this 
mysterious world, youth and 
love remain the first and sweet- 
est in our thoughts : there is 
nothing which takes their place, 
nothing which imparts their 
glow, nothing which conveys 
such deep and beautiful hints of 
the better things to be. Miranda 
had known no companionship 
but her father's, no world but 
the sea-encircled island, no life 
but the secluded and eventless 
existence in that wave-swept 
solitude. She had had the rare 
good fortune to ripen under the 
spell of pure, high thoughts, and 
so near to Nature that no grosser 
currents of influence had borne 



61 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

her away from the most whole- 
some and consoling of all com- 
panionships. Ferdinand came 
from the shows of royalty and 
small falsities of courtiers ; the 
palace, the city, the crowded, 
self-seeking, hypocritical world 
had encompassed him from 
youth, robbed him of privacy, 
cheated him of that repose which 
brings a man to a knowledge of 
himself, and despoils him of 
those sweet and tranquillising 
memories which grow out of a 
quiet childhood as the wild flow- 
ers spring along the edges of the 
woods. 

Coming, one from the still- 
ness of a solitary island and the 
other from the roar and rush of 
a court and a city, these two 
met, and there flashed from one 
to the other that sudden and 

62 



ISLAND 



thrilling intelligence which on 
the instant gives life a new in- 
terpretation and the world an 
all-conquering loveliness. No- 
where, surely, has the eternal 
romance found more significant 
setting than on this magical is- 
land, about which sea and sky, 
day and night, weave and weave 
again those vanishing webs of 
splendour in which daybreak 
and evening stars are snared ; 
with such music throbbing on 
the air as invisible spirits make 
when the command of the mas- 
ter is on them ! Here, surely, 
was the home of this drama of 
the soul, the acting of which 
on the troubled stage of life is 
a perpetual appeal to faith and 
hope and joy 1 For youth and 
love are shining words in the 
vocabulary of the Imagination 

63 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

— words which contain the deep- 
est of present and predict the 
sweetest of future happiness. 
So deeply interwoven is the 
real significance of these words 
with the Imagination that, sepa- 
rated from it, they lose all their 
magical glow and beauty. 
Youth moves in no narrow ter- 
ritory ; its boundary lines fade 
out into infinity. It feels no 
iron hand of limitation ; it dis- 
cerns no impassable wall of re- 
striction. Life stretches away 
before and about it limitless as 
space and full of unseen splen- 
dours as the stars that crowd 
and brighten it. The great 
wings of hope, unbruised yet 
by any beatings of the later 
tempests, shine through the air, 
lustrous and tireless, as if all 
flights were possible. And far 

64 



SLAND 



off, on the remote horizon lines 
where sight fails, the mirage of 
dreams dissolves and reappears 
in a thousand alluring forms. 

Love knows even less of 
limitation and infirmity. Its 
eyes, sometimes oblivious of the 
things most obvious, pierce the 
remotest future, read the inner- 
most soul, discern the last and 
highest fruitions. The seed in 
its hand, hard, black, unbroken, 
is already a flower to its 
thought ; out of the bare, stern 
facts of the present its magical 
touch brings one knows not 
what of joy and loveliness. 
And when youth and love are 
one, the heavens are not bright 
enough for their thoughts, nor 
eternity long enough for their 
deeds. Amid the shadows of 
life they seem to have caught a 

65 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

momentary radiance from be- 
yond the clouds ; amid sorrows 
and sins and all manner of 
weariness they are the recurring 
vision and revelation of the 
eternal order. All the world 
waits on them and rejoices in 
them ; and the bitter knowledge 
of what lies before the eager 
feet, waiting with passionate 
hope on the threshold, does not 
lessen the perennial interest in 
that fair picture ; for in youth 
and love are realised the uni- 
versal ideals of men. Youth 
and love are the mortal syno- 
nyms of immortality ; all that 
freshness of spirit, buoyancy of 
strength, energy of hope, bound- 
lessness of joy, completeness 
and glory of life, imply, are 
typified in these two things, al- 
ways vanishing and yet always 

66 



ISLAND 



reappearing among men. Wear- 
ing the beautiful masks of youth 
and love, the gods continually 
revisit the earth, and in their 
luminous presence faith forever 
rebuilds its shattered temples. 

That which makes youth and 
love so precious to us is the 
play they give to the Imagina- 
tion ; indeed, the better part of 
them both is compounded of 
Imagination. The horizons re- 
cede from their gaze because 
the second sight of Imagination 
is theirs — that prescience which 
pierces the mists which enfold 
us, and discerns the vaster world 
through which we move for the 
most part with halting feet and 
blinded eyes. Youth knows 
that it was born to life and 
power and exhaustless re- 
sources ; love knows that it 



67 



AN UNDISCOVERED 

has found and shall forever 
possess those beautiful ideals 
which are the passion of noble 
natures. . 

Are they blind, these flower- 
crowned, joy-seeking figures ; 
or are we blind who smile 
through tears at their illusions ? 
On this island there is but one 
answer to that question ; for do 
we not know that they only 
who believe and trust discern 
the truth, and that to faith and 
hope alone is true wisdom 
given? "As yet lingers the 
twelfth hour and the darkness, 
but the time will come when it 
shall be light, and man will 
awaken from his lofty dreams 
and find — his dreams all there, 
and that nothing is gone save 
his sleep. 11 



68 



